31 - City of Fiends (11 page)

Road east of Exeter

The roadway here was ideal for an ambush, Sir Charles thought. He would have to keep that in mind.

So far, their campaign had met with considerable success. They already had four carts containing rich cloths, gold and coin, and a number of plates and jewelled or enamelled work. He could not
remember a ride which had provided such profits.

His companions were a raggle-taggle bunch – some peasants, two men who he was sure should long ago have been hanged, one renegade priest and a few who had been committed to the old King
– but on the whole they seemed reliable. Yesterday in the church he had tested them and all had proved satisfactory.

Ulric was different. He had no place here. His only duty had been to bring news from Exeter about the Bishop’s travels, but he had had no idea that his intelligence was to be used to kill
Bishop James. Sir Charles was very content to have him as squire, untrained though he might be. The lad had saved him in that hall.

Besides, this untrained squire had very light duties, since Sir Charles possessed little in the way of equipment to be cleaned and maintained. It was his fervent wish that he might renew his
fortunes by this meandering ride through the Bishop’s estates. The thought of the armour and mail he could buy when he had the King’s favour was almost enough to make his mouth water.
The proceeds of this ride must be desposited with the King’s backers, of course, but there should be a trifle left over for him.

A fine spitting rain began, and he pulled his hood over his head. He was used to such weather. The main thing was to ensure that one’s sword and dagger were safe from the damp, and so he
tugged a fold of his cloak about him as he rode, covering their hilts.

Yes, there should be a good profit. For now, he must continue with his little campaign, and then get to the man in Exeter who was to take all the goods and sell them. Ulric’s master, a
merchant called Paffard, would be happy to take all this from him for a good fee. And then the money could be taken to Sir Edward of Caernarfon and the Dunheved gang who had released him from his
gaol, to help fund his return to the throne.

Aye, Sir Charles thought to himself, life was good. And there, three miles distant, was another manor ready and waiting to be despoiled. He smiled contentedly.

Combe Street near the alley

Sir Reginald looked petulant when the two knights finally emerged from the alley, Emma thought. For all the sombre mood of the gathering, it was tempting to giggle at his grumpy
expression.

‘Undress her,’ he commanded, but there was no movement from the watching crowd. ‘Come! Someone must undress her.’

There was such a tone of hurt in his voice that Emma wanted to pet him. He was little more than a boy in a man’s office. He glanced down at the clerk as if seeking support, but the clerk
was writing in his rolls still, and made no effort to assist.

‘Helewisia,’ Emma said, ‘come and help. We can’t leave the poor chit to some carter or tanner. Better that we do it.’

Her neighbour nodded, and without speaking, they both went to the figure and knelt beside it.

Alice had been set down a short way from the alley, and her body was cold and flaccid, which was a relief; the two woman could undress her without too much difficulty. They gently removed her
clothes and piled them neatly to one side, and then moved away.

It was sad to see her naked. Emma knew it was essential that the corpse should be exposed to the full view of the Coroner and his jury, but still it seemed as though the girl was being
humiliated after death. She crossed herself, and realised a tear was forming in her eye. She wiped it away crossly. Tears should be saved for the funeral itself, not expended here.

‘I find that she has been stabbed twice in the breast,’ the Coroner declared loudly, studying the slim body. ‘Once in each. It’s . . .’ He broke off and turned
away.

‘As if she was being deliberately marked in the breasts,’ Sir Richard finished for him.

Alice had always been a pale girl, and naked in death Emma thought she looked like a figure carved from marble.

On her pure flesh the stains of blood about the two elongated diamond-shaped stab wounds stood out clearly, as did the discolouration of dead flesh where her body had lain. About her wounds, the
blood had dried black, and flaked off as a powder. But other signs stood out on her body: Emma could see the marks, one on the left side of her throat, another pair on her breasts. Not bites with
teeth, but the marks of love. Sucking kisses that had drawn the blood to the surface of her skin like large bruises. Seeing them, Emma knew what the girl had been doing earlier on the day she died,
as did all the other adults there.

Baldwin stared thoughtfully at Alice’s body. He looked like a man peering at accounts in a ledger, not at a dead maid.

‘Do you object to my studying her?’ he asked the Coroner. ‘I have been asked specifically by the Precentor of the Cathedral to aid you as I may.’

‘Sir Baldwin? My apologies, please, do take all the time you need. I know of your reputation, sir.’

‘I am grateful,’ Baldwin said as he crouched by the body. ‘The two stab wounds are quite clear,’ he went on. ‘Both were from the same blade. It is a blade some one
and one half inches broad, and it is less than eight inches long. The blade appears to have penetrated to its full depth.’

‘How do you know that?’ the Coroner asked. Emma thought he looked baffled.

‘The cross of the guard has slammed into the girl’s flesh here, over the breast, and bruised it. Yet it did not pass through her body to her back, so it cannot be as long as her body
is deep. If I insert a finger . . .’ Baldwin stuck his finger into the wound. ‘Yes, it passes down slightly, but not steeply. So the knife-blade is longer than my finger. It was no
eating-knife, but a dagger with two edges. The wounds are clearly diamond-shaped, and they penetrated the tunic which she wore.’

‘I see,’ the Coroner said, and Emma saw that the clerk was scribbling quickly as he tried to note all Sir Baldwin’s comments.

Baldwin considered, wiping his finger on a fold of her skirts. ‘She made love not long before her death. These marks on her body,’ he pointed out the bruises Emma had noticed on the
neck and breast, ‘these are not the marks of a rapist.’

Sir Reginald’s clerk was unconvinced. ‘A rapist driven by his lust may have brought her here for himself and made those marks on her body, and afterwards she pulled her clothes on in
modesty before he slew her. Men in the heat of their passions can be brutal.’

‘You suggest that the rapist stood by as she donned her clothes, and then slew her? The stabs were through the material of her chemise, so she was clad when killed.’

The Coroner was nodding, as though impressed with the logic of Baldwin’s reasoning, but Emma guessed that professional awe was tempered with irritation at being shown up before the
jury.

‘Consider this,’ Baldwin said, holding Alice’s head and studying her. ‘I am sure you noticed this, Coroner: her lips are bruised. One may think she was grasped there, to
prevent her calling out? But there are no finger-marks at either cheek. If I saw a maid silenced in such a manner, I would expect four bruises on one cheek and jaw, and the thumb-mark
correspondingly on the other, but there is no such mark here. Which is peculiar.’

‘What else would bruise her mouth?’ Sir Reginald asked.

‘Her teeth are firmly fixed. It was not a punch,’ Baldwin explained. ‘But now I have seen her body, an explanation is to hand. If she was kissed violently, passionately, that
would possibly lead to her mouth being bruised. So this lover was an ardent fellow.’

‘But you don’t think she was raped,’ the clerk said.

‘With a pretty maid like this, I would always look for signs of a rape,’ Baldwin agreed, ‘but she had recently lain with her lover, so how could we tell whether she was raped
afterwards?’

He stood, and pulled her arm to roll her gently over onto her stomach. Her back was smooth and unblemished, except for the staining where blood had pooled.

‘There is no evidence of a blow, a slap or punch, to her face,’ Baldwin said. He stared down the length of the figure. ‘I should have expected that, if she had tried to fight
off an assault. And obviously she was not raped here in the alley.’

‘Why not?’ the Coroner asked.

‘Her back,’ Baldwin said, ‘is not marked. Consider: if she were forced to lie among the stones and filth of the alley, she would have abrasions, and her clothing would be
stained from the dirt. There are no such indications, so I doubt that she was raped out here. That does not mean she was not raped somewhere else, perhaps on a comfortable bed, but not
here.’

‘I don’t understand – why would someone kill her and dump her body here?’

‘To distract a Coroner, to conceal the killer’s identity, or to avoid paying fines. Wherever a body is found, that community will pay the fines for infringement of the King’s
Peace. If it were moved, someone else would have to pay.’

‘Well, since there are none of those signs, perhaps she was not raped, but merely killed there in the alley,’ the Coroner concluded.

‘For what reason?’ Baldwin asked, rifling through the pile of her discarded clothes.

‘Robbery,’ said the clerk.

Baldwin looked at him. ‘This was a maidservant, not a merchant. Would a cut-purse think her likely to wear a gold necklace, or hold a well-filled purse?’

‘What do you think, then?’

Baldwin had picked up her chemise, and was studying it closely.

‘There is no way to tell, as yet. Perhaps we shall learn more when we hear what she was doing on the day she died.’

Rougemont Castle

He had been in a good mood that morning. Sir James de Cockington, the Sheriff of Exeter, had been entertained by a young woman from the local tavern, and her skills and athletic
ability had first delighted, and then alarmed him. He had woken to a mild headache and that inevitable fuzziness that comes from a lack of sleep, and the wench was gone – without robbing him,
he noted.

He made his way down to his hall, and called for food and drink, considering his future. It was uncertain.

Only a few weeks ago he’d thought he must lose his position here. The new regime would not appreciate his efforts on behalf of Sir Edward of Caernarfon, and he was as aware as any that his
post would be a perfect gift to many of those who had spent the years trying to unseat the King. This position of Sheriff of Devon was a ripe plum ready to fall into any hands which had been
supportive of the barons opposed to Sir Edward.

But nothing had happened.

Sir James reckoned that at first there had been too much going on around Bristol and Wales, let alone London, for those in charge to worry about him. King Edward III was still not yet fifteen,
and the land was controlled by the council of the leading barons of the country. And behind all there stood that wily dog, Sir Roger Mortimer.

He was the real power in the land. That was clear enough to any man with a brain. And Sir James had a particularly astute mind when it came to seeing where was the safest haven in troubled
times. He hadn’t got to be a Sheriff without understanding the details of politics.

Hearing that Sir Baldwin was waiting in his antechamber had sent him into a minor paroxysm of panic. Last time he had met Sir Baldwin, he had not enjoyed the experience.

Then a thought took him, and it was a happy thought.

Sir Baldwin, whom he had always considered a grumpy example of a rustic knight, had always appeared to consider himself the equal of Sir James. More, in fact: Sir James felt sure Sir Baldwin
looked down upon him. Well, times had changed now, hadn’t they? Sir Baldwin’s influence at court was ended. He had been loyal to the old King, to Sir Edward of Caernarfon. And now that
King was gone, and in his place was the council and the new King. Sir Baldwin’s position was built on sand – while Sir James was held in some esteem by the new government, clearly,
because he was still in post.

Refreshed with his musings, he took a leisurely time over breaking his fast. It was balm to his soul to know that, as he drank two mazers of watered wine, the older man was outside cooling his
heels. There was probably some little favour he wished. A rural knight like him was little better than the peasants who wallowed in the mud. Certainly Sir Baldwin would not fit into the circle of
friends that Sir James had assiduously cultivated. He wiped his lips and poured a third mazer before motioning to his steward to remove all the debris.

‘Tell Sir Baldwin I will see him now,’ he said, stifling a belch.

The steward gave him a baffled look. ‘Sir Baldwin?’

‘He is waiting for me in the antechamber.’

‘No, sir, he had to leave. He has been gone since before Nones, sir,’ he said, and gave him Sir Richard’s message.

The steward did not particularly like his master, so it was a cheerful man who left the swearing Sheriff a few moments later. He shut the door behind him and made his way to the buttery, where
he had to laugh aloud at the memory of the Sheriff’s amazed expression.